The Legend of Zelda: Lost Legacy
by freetarded
Summary: With the King of Hyrule turned to stone, the aloof Princess Zelda commands Link and his fellow graduates to search for a way to break his curse. But when their search begins to meddle with the affairs of neighboring kingdoms, Link and his companions begin to question the nature of their mission... A fanfic adaptation of an upcoming comic; accompanying illustrations coming soon
1. Klay

**_A/N Woaaah I haven't used in years. _**

**The Legend of Zelda: Lost Legacy**_** is a fan project that's been in the works for well over a year and a half. It was originally conceived to be a fangame, and while that's still the plan, progress has been slow (see my profile/PM me for more details if you're interested?). It was suggested to me that I create a fancomic to attract attention to the project. Since fancomics require scripts for dialogue, I thought I might as well turn the script into a fanfic. A fanfic would also allow more details about Lost Legacy's hypothetical placement in the Zelda Universe timeline.**_

_**Comic pages/illustrations will be coming soon (many of them are nearly finished) and will be linked here when completed! Why are you still reading this-**_

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~ Klay ~

_There is a storm coming_, he decided, frowning over the distant hills. The blockade of mesas in Trilby Highlands always prevented storms from flying over North Hyrule Field. No, the storm would not fly over. It would sit here over his home and wring itself out like a heavy cotton rag. He grimaced at the purpling shelf of clouds at the horizon, his curly beard twitching in annoyance. Klay was in his 50s, short of height and thick of gut. In no time, he'd be able to feel the storm in his bones, the humidity frizzing out his beard and delaying the curing time of his pots and jars. He tugged the last scrap of laundry from the line and folded it neatly, despite his hands being hidden in the long yellow sleeves of his robe. Hopefully the storm would come _after_ Link's final examination.

The stubby, pot-shaped man picked up his basket and nudged open the door to his stubby, pot-shaped cottage. Placing the basket on his head, he skirted around ceramic containers of various colors and sizes, glancing at them briefly as he went past. Yes, the orders for the Milk Bar were curing just fine. No cracks, no discoloration. They'd be safe before the foul weather slowed their drying time. The jugs for Lon Lon Ranch? Not so much. He could already see a slender, hairline crack easing its way up the porous surface of the unfired clay. Those jugs would have to start over from scratch once the storm passed and the air cleared.

He pushed open another door with his bum, taking him out of his workshop into a small hallway, lined with more pots. These were the finished ones, all glossy and painted and glazed. These had been personal projects of Klay's, and they'd turned out nice enough for him to display. Some of them were dustier than he'd liked. He'd have to get Link to dust around this place when he came back from the academy. Big pots, little pots. Some only had designs, some had no designs, some had stories etched into them, and some were created for the practical purpose of storing grain and potions. His favorite one sat nearest to his own bedroom; a great cobalt and mother-of-pearl pithoi vessel with Zoran etchings. He'd mixed his own experimental blend of iridescent varnish and crushed gyorg scales for this vessel, years ago. It always reminded him of his younger days when he traded with the River Zoras for ingredients and chemicals, back before he got fat and fluffy like an old cuccoo. Ah, the Zoras. Such an elegant, powerful race. What he wouldn't give to be 60 pounds lighter and 3 feet taller, much like the Zoras, like his own nephew, like his late brother...

The laundry was not going to be put away while he stood there reminiscing to himself. He readjusted his grip on his basket and kicked open the door to Link's room.

No.

No. You can't be serious.

He was still here? This late? It was finals day, for goodness sake! The sun was already high in the sky.

"Link! Link! Wake up, you big useless log of a boy!" he said, throwing his basket down and waddling over to his nephew's bed to strip away the sheets. He reached over the bed and threw open the shutters, letting a bright beam of light fall over his nephew's face, igniting his bright blond hair. Link groaned and rolled over, away from the light.

"Uncle," he groaned. "Not nowww, it's too early. I've gotta go to my finals later. Wake me up then."

"You've got to go to your finals _now_!" Klay shouted, shaking Link by the bare shoulders. "Get dressed and get your rear out this door this instant!"

Link sat there for a moment, still mostly asleep, his pointed ears drooping. Klay grabbed one of those ears and gave it a sharp tug. "Link! I'm serious! You are going to be late if you don't leave right now!"

Link shrugged him off, rubbing his sore ear and huddling back under the covers. A few moments later, he finally comprehended the situation. He sat bolt upright, the covers flying off of him. "I'm gonna be late!" He scrambled past his uncle, digging through his wardrobe to pull out his uniform. It was the upperclassmen's garb, a reddish sleeveless tunic, with the Hylian Loftwing crest on the chest. "Where's my hat, where's my hat, where's my hat-"

"Right here," Klay said, tossing the long, floppy, conical hat to him. "You won't have time to break your fast, you'll have to leave right now if you have a prayer of arriving on time."

There was a rustle of taut leather and the clicking of buckles as Link fastened his sword to his hip, striding out of his room and towards the kitchen.

"Are you sure? I smell breakfast, can't I just grab a piece of toast or something?"

"No time!" Klay cried, quickly skirting around Link from behind and blocking him from entering the kitchen. Link blinked, not expecting his tubby uncle to move so fast; he _really_ must be late. Klay spun his nephew around and pushed against the small of his back, shoving him towards the front door.

"You've spent the last five years of your life in that academy, and it all boils down to your performance today!" he said, grunting as he pushed. "I'm not gonna let your laziness screw up your academic career. What would your father say?"

"Dad missed his final, Uncle, and he still graduated with high honors!"

"That's only because he'd saved a traveling caravan from a Moblin attack on his way to class! I doubt you'll have a similar chance to make up for a missed final. Now get out there-" he shoved Link through the curved doorway- "and do us proud!"

"Alright, alright, I'm going," he said, the late morning sun peering through the clouds and lighting up his form. He really did look so much like his father. The good looks, the wide shoulders, the choppy blond hair. Klay secretly wished his brother were here to wish Link luck on his final. His nephew deserved better than to be sent off by a pudgy, bearded pumpkin of a man.

As Link descended down the dirt path down the gentle slope away from their cottage, Klay cried out "Good luck, Link! Tell Harold and Phoebe I said hello! I'll be in the stalls as soon as they open the doors!" He waved a floppy-sleeve-covered hand in farewell.

"Okay! I'll see you later, then!" he called back. Klay watched him with a beard-hidden smile as the scarlet clad boy disappeared over the next hill in the direction of Castle Town. He shut the door and pressed his back up against it. Late or not, Klay knew Master Kakiri would pardon Link's tardiness. His nephew was a prodigy, after all. Master Kakiri recognized Link's talent and would likely bend a rule or two on his behalf. He pushed away from the door and waddled towards his own room, gently running a palm over his Zoran vase as he walked past. The Royal Hylian Guard Academy's finals were open to the public, and the spectators' stalls would be open soon. Klay would need to change into more formal robes and outrun the storm to Castle Town. These shabby yellow robes would never do, and he didn't want to embarrass his nephew. No, he'd don the deep blue robes he'd bought off a merchant in town. He changed robes, washed his face, and readjusted his squat, potlike hat. He plucked an umbrella from the vase near the front door, just in case the storm decided to empty its load as Klay made his way into town.

There was something wrong with this storm. Klay knew little about weather or meteorology; that knowledge was reserved for the higher echelons in Castle Town. But he knew it was unusual for clouds to behave in this way. The sun had been peeking through the patchy, overcast sky only minutes ago. Now, it was entirely obscured. Thick, low-hanging purple masses of vapor were gathering in the distance. They stretched into fat, tapered snakes, like octorok tentacles, and raced inward from all directions. The sky shone pink and orange between the purple rolls of moisture. Klay clutched his umbrella tightly in his hand, uneasy. The tapered ends of the clouds met together in a tight spiral over the hills, over Castle Town. What was this? A hurricane? Klay had heard long ago of these great storms that sometimes formed out at sea. But there was no body of water near here; Lake Hylia was leagues away, and the moat around the castle was nowhere near large enough to produce a hurricane.

There was bright red flash, red as coals, red as Din. A streak of scarlet lightning tore from the center of the spiraling clouds, accompanied by a clap of thunder. The bolt persisted, connecting the earth and the sky, growing brighter and brighter, shifting from red to blue to purple to green in dizzying succession. The arc faded, and the thunder rolled off into the hills. Klay blinked, the bright beam of light burned into his eyes, swimming hazily in his vision even when his eyelids were closed. The cloud cover broke, and the cloudy snakes and tendrils retreated, uncurling from their coiled spiral.

The sky was blue again, as clear and brilliant as his favorite vase. There was no trace of the storm, no stray cloud, no rain, nothing. Had the fuzzy, phantom image of the lightning bolt not remained in his retinas, Klay could've believed he'd imagined the whole thing. He was off, huffing and puffing, running towards Castle Town as fast as he could, his umbrella abandoned on the dirt path behind him. He couldn't have been the only one to see such a massive, sudden burst of power. As he rose over the crest of the nearest hill, he could see merchant carts on the road to town, stopped in their tracks with their drivers rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

Was it a message from the Gods? Had the day of The Merge finally arrived, when the Sacred Realm and the Realm of Light finally melted together into one plane? Or was that beam of light the result of darker forces at work? The storm wasn't coming, the storm was _here_, and he'd just sent his nephew into the heart of it.


	2. Link

~ Link ~

_She's gonna kill me,_ he thought to himself, using that morbid thought to spur him on faster. _She's gonna kill me and use my corpse as a meat shield for the final._ He was only just now sprinting downslope of the low hill that lay between his uncle's cottage and Castle Town. He wasn't even in the city gates yet, and he could already feel a cramp knifing him under his ribs. He should've at least had a banana or something before Klay shoved him out the door. Phoebe would kill him _twice_ if she guessed he'd gone into their final exam on an empty stomach. She'd been nagging both Harold and himself for weeks, organizing diets and exercises and workouts for them so that they'd be on top form for today. Harold might've stuck to her schedule (_he's such a pushover_), but Link didn't need a _girl_ telling him what to do. His own training regimen worked just fine...which is what he told himself as the cramp in his side grew worse.

The soft grass under his feet gave way to the slate-paved Castle Road. He hopped over the low stone wall that bordered the highway and wove between the rickety wooden merchant carts. He must've been _really_ late if the merchants from the south were already at Castle Town's gates. The city sat in the verdant, soft valley of North Hyrule Field, bordered by Trilby Highlands in the northeast and the Ikana Mesa in the West. The greystone and bluestone walls stuck up defiantly from the valley floor, encircled by a shimmering moat that was siphoned off by a Hylian-made stream from Zora River. He could see the conical towers of Hyrule Castle peeking over the tops of the walls, purple and hazy in the distance. Banners bearing the Hylian Crest, the same crest on the chest of his tunic, fluttered lazily in the late morning breeze from over the open gate's arch. The heels of his boots stomped loudly over the wooden slats of the drawbridge, and he gave a quick wave to the guard on duty at the portcullis winch.

Why did Phoebe have to suck the fun out of everything, anyway? She didn't used to always be that way. _"Quit smacking that cuccoo with your training sword before it freaks out on you, Link!" _she'd nag. _"Don't swim in the moat, the guards are gonna catch you and fine your uncle! ...Maybe you wouldn't have so many bruises after class if you'd practiced with your shield more. ...When are you gonna get a haircut? Your bangs keep blinding you during sparring..."_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, what_ever_. How _obvious_ was it that Phoebe was taking out her insecurities on Harold and him? It was probably because she was from a family of geniuses and really cute sisters. Her parents had founded some sort of marine biology lab on the coast of Lake Hylia, and her prettier older sisters ran the Milk Bar. Small wonder she constantly nagged on Harold and Link at the Academy to hide her own shortcomings and chronically hurt feelings. If anything, Harold only enabled her nagging. How could anybody that huge be so intimidated by someone like _her_?

He wished he'd had time to enter from any of the other gates. The South Gate was always the most crowded, being the main entrance to Castle Town's marketplace. Clearly Link was due for more bad luck in the form of the market being unusually packed. Flocks of children clung to the hems and aprons of their mothers as they haggled over the price of fruit and oil with merchants. Smokesters showed off their racks of bacons and jerkies and fried cuccoos, fresh from their smokers. Link's mouth watered as he elbowed his way past them. The colorful, smelly crowd seemed to press in on him, and the heavily overcast sky only made him feel more claustrophobic. A moldy old Goron sat in a ramshackle booth selling mineral water, fast asleep with a bubble of mucus growing and shrinking in his nostril. A perky, younger Goron sat next to him, eagerly explaining the benefits of mineral water to a young couple who clearly wanted to leave, but were too polite to interrupt him. An angry old woman demanded her money back for spoiled apples she'd purchased the day before, only to be turned away by an obnoxiously cheerful merchant attendant.

Link only became hungrier as he pushed his way towards the center of Castle Town. Food vendors and produce merchants were more common towards Castle Town's central plaza. Part of him just wanted to cover his ears and ignore the vendors' announcements for today's menu.

"Breakfast cakes! Get your breakfast cakes here! Fluffy golden cucoo eggs, Lon Lon buttermilk biscuit, Milk Bar cheese, Lon Lon bacon! Only five Rupees!"

"Nobody likes starting their day on an empty stomach! Come and try our brand new fruit '_smoothies_,' blended from the finest imported fruits from the Gerudo Desert. Comes in several flavors! Buy two for eight Rupees!"

Thank the Gods Link hadn't brought any money with him, or he would've been sorely tempted to buy something. The crowd had finally thinned out, and the central plaza was just ahead of him, its huge decorative fountain twinkling in rapidly dimming light. More clouds were moving in to block out the sun. It would've been awful if it started to rain. Nothing could be more embarrassing than to show up to class soaking wet _and_ late.

Oh! There was always a shortcut. He quickly ducked into a narrow alley between two blank walls just before the entrance to the plaza. It was so narrow that he had to turn sideways a little bit just to fit through. The pavement beneath him was bowed down the center to form a rain gutter, to draw standing water out of the plaza and into the sewers. The alley ended in a tiny courtyard, surrounded by high plaster tenement walls. Laundry was hung on lines that criss-crossed the courtyard several feet over his head. At the base of one of these walls was a large barred grate that dropped down a few yards into the sewers. If Link was careful enough, he could take the drier sewer tunnels all the way to the grate outside of the Academy, without getting wet if it began to rain. He reached down and tugged at the rough iron lattice, giving it a few short tugs to pry it off the wall. There was a soft crumble of plaster and flakes of rust, and the grate was free of the wall. Link used to use this shortcut all the time back when he first joined the Academy. Back when Phoebe was fun and Harold wasn't so large that he could still fit in there.

He quickly slid into the gaping hole in the wall and landed in the stony, earthy darkness. He straightened up to find the hole at eye-level, reached up to pull the grate back up into its frame, and began to head north. By taking this tunnel, he'd be able to avoid all the crowds, buildings, and gates on the way to the Academy. This part of the sewer system was mainly for draining rainwater, and since it hadn't rained in a while, they were as dry and dusty as uncle Klay's unfired pots. The smells of food and sweat and woodsmoke from the market were gone, and replaced by the old, gritty scent of rough stone and dry earth. He ran his hand along the curved wall as he walked, the occasional square of muted sunlight from a passing grate lighting his way. As he neared the Academy, it began to get darker. Link wasn't sure if the grates weren't facing the sun, or if it had become so overcast that the sun's rays couldn't penetrate the clouds.

Most of the grates were simple iron fixtures, but he stopped when he noticed a particularly ornate looking grille of metal covering the next sewer opening. Everything on the north side of Castle Town was all gussied-up and fancy. The architecture was much more elaborate and gaudy in order to show off the wealth of the lords and ladies that lived here. Apparently, even the sewer covers were given the artsy treatment. He reached up and gave the gilded screen a rough shove, popping it out of its frame and onto the street with a clatter. This opening was smaller than the hole he'd climbed into earlier, but he was able to quickly wiggle himself out of there before anybody noticed him doing so. He pushed himself up to his feet, and just as he thought, he'd ended up at the doorstep of the Academy.

But why was it so dark? He looked up, expecting to see the dim glow of the sun through the clouds, but what he saw instead shocked him. An enormous, ghostly spiral had formed over Hyrule Castle. Shrouds of purple smoke and vapor orbited around it as the spiral curled further and further in on itself like a screw. There was no wind, no scent of rain, no grumble of thunder. Link gasped loudly, as if to fill the silence. He gaped up at the formation and instinctively gripped the handle of his sword, threatened. It sat up there like a coiled snake, waiting to strike.

And then it struck.


End file.
